Two Towns in Provence: Map of Another Town and a Considerable Town

This volume brings together two delightful books—Map of Another Town and A Considerable Town—by one of our most beloved food and travel writers. In her inimitable style, here M.F.K. Fisher tells the stories—and reveals the secrets—of two quintessential French cities.

Map of Another Town, Fisher’s memoir of the French provincial capital of Aix-en-Provence is, as the author tells us, “my picture, my map, of a place and therefore of myself,” and a vibrant and perceptive profile of the kinship between a person and a place. Then, in A Considerable Town, she scans the centuries to reveal the ancient sources that clarify the Marseille of today and the indestructible nature of its people, and in so doing weaves a delightful journey filtered through the senses of a profound writer.

Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher was one of the great food writers of the twentieth century. Born in 1908 in Albion, Michigan, Fisher grew up in Whittier, California, and was educated at Illinois College, Occidental College, UCLA, and at the University of Dijon in France. She travelled to, and lived in Europe throughout her adult life. The author of numerous books, magazine articles, novels, and a translation of Brillat-Savarin’s The Physiology of Taste, Fisher is best remembered for her gastronomical works and the autobiographical nature of her writings about people, places, and food. M.F.K. Fisher died in 1992.